The Potential For Renewable Electricity Is Vast, But Infrastructure Development Is Needed.

 The Potential For Renewable Electricity Is Vast, But Infrastructure Development Is Needed. - Neighborhood Power's Williams Acres community solar project outside Woodburn, Oregon. Courtesy of Energy Trust of Oregon. Neighborhood Power's Williams Acres community solar project outside Woodburn, Oregon. Courtesy of Energy Trust of Oregon.

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The Potential For Renewable Electricity Is Vast, But Infrastructure Development Is Needed.

To meet climate goals, the Northwest needs to generate unparalleled amounts of wind and solar power and the electrical transmission water to deliver it.

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There is growing opposition to renewable energy projects, such as large solar installations or kilometer-long corridors of wind turbines, and the power lines that connect them to cities. They can require large tracts of land and, if not responsibly planned, can threaten sensitive habitats, prime farmland, and tribal rights.

In light of these challenges, some proponents argue that the region could avoid building large-scale power lines and renewable energy projects by dramatically increasing so-called "distributed solar power" instead. Unlike their utility-scale counterparts, distributed solar projects generate electricity close to the point of consumption—for example, on the roofs of homes and businesses, in parking lots, in small, unused fields—and bypass the transmission grid entirely. Distributed solar power typically ranges from small projects of 0.001 megawatts (1 kilowatt) to mid-size projects of about 5 megawatts (MW). By comparison, solar farms in the United States typically have installed capacities of 100 to 200 MW. The largest parks in the country have a maximum of 500 MW.

Unlike other parts of the United States, however, distributed solar power has limited potential to offset the need for new transmission capacity in Cascadia. This is largely because most places in the region affected by transmission restrictions need most of their power in the winter, when the sun is at its weakest. The biggest exception is southern Idaho, which with its strong sunshine and high electricity demand for agricultural irrigation in the summer could be a prime candidate for distributed solar expansion.

Still, distributed solar power, especially when combined with storage, can help decarbonize Cascadia. Local production helps protect the region from the risk that we simply don't build new transmission lines and renewable energy projects fast enough. But the Northwest is lagging behind in installing the most promising type of distributed solar infrastructure: midsize projects in the 1-5 MW range. Idaho and Washington are far behind. Lawmakers in these states should remove project size limits on net metering and take a close look at community solar, which has fueled the growth of midscale solar in other states, including Oregon.1 Net metering refers to systems in which owners of distributed solar resources, such as rooftop solar panels, are reimbursed by their utility companies for all the electricity they generate and do not use for any electricity use. The level of compensation for homeowners depends on the state.

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Distributed solar power has the greatest potential to offset transmission construction in various parts of Cascadia's "peak summer."

In the Pacific Northwest, as elsewhere, more transmission capacity is needed to 1) meet the growing demand for electricity associated with the electrification of everything from cars to furnaces, and 2) to replace electricity supplies that today come from burning gas or coal. In particular, we lack transmission lines to bring clean power to cities in western Oregon and Washington and southern Idaho.

The argument that distributed solar can prevent transmission from being built is that by generating more power close to the people who use it, you won't have to generate it as far away, and therefore you won't need to build transmission lines. Also, you will lose less electricity during transportation. In fact, in 2018, California's independent grid operator recommended canceling 18 transmission expansion projects to save $2.6 billion. He cites a reduction in projected electricity demand due to higher levels of rooftop and solar energy efficiency. (Note that distributed solar isn't the only way transmission line construction could be prevented or delayed in some locations. Others include upgrading existing lines, increasing energy efficiency, implementing demand response programs, and installing distributed storage, all with different potentials in different locations. 2Demand response programs encourage electricity customers to reduce or shift the timing of their electricity use to better match electricity use, later in this article.)

However, the vast majority of transmission-limited areas in the Northwest use most of their power in the winter, when the sun is weakest in those areas. This unusual "winter spike" pattern occurs due to the region's famously mild summers, which have made air conditioning unnecessary in the past, and a heavy reliance on electric resistance heaters. Of the 11 load zones west of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington, none experience peak electricity demand during the summer, according to the 2021 Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) Transmission Report. 3. Load zones are cities or groups of cities or towns that are geographically or electrically close. Together, their demand forms the electrical "charge" of the area. (Portland has a “double peak,” meaning peak demand for electricity in both summer and winter.) Distributed solar power in Cascadia's high-power winter areas can do little to offset the grid build needed to meet peak electricity demand because it does not generate enough power at that time of year.4 Grids are built to handle peak electricity demand, even if that peak lasts only a few hours in any given year.

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Solar distributed across much of western Oregon and Washington also cannot adequately replace dwindling fossil fuel resources. To illustrate why, the table below shows the energy production and consumption patterns of a friend's house in Seattle with rooftop solar. The house is an indication of what to expect in the future: it is fully electric and relies on a highly efficient heat pump to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. From May to October, solar panel production (indicated by the green line) completely replaces household electricity consumption (indicated by the orange bars). But from November to April, the house needs at least some power from your electrical appliance. (The house probably relies on the electric grid for power overnight in the summer because it is not equipped with a battery saver.)

My friends' electric company is Seattle City Light, which is mostly powered by hydroelectric power. But if they lived in the same house in, say, Olympia or Bellevue, Washington, which have similar weather patterns to Seattle, they would be served by Puget Sound Energy (PSE). PSE relies on gas and coal for about half of its generation capacity. That means you have to build or buy new renewables to meet most of your electricity demand in winter, as you lose your power to carbon-spewing gas and coal. It's the same story with other investor-owned utilities in the region that rely heavily on fossil fuels.5 Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are for-profit monopolies regulated by the state's Public Utilities Commission (PUC). In Washington and Oregon, they are subject to clean electricity laws. Investor-owned utilities serve about 80 percent of electricity customers in Idaho, 75 percent in Oregon, and 43 percent in Washington, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Other types of utilities include utility districts, rural electric cooperatives, and municipal utilities (such as Seattle City Light), which rely primarily on hydroelectric power from the Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest. Power mix data for investor-owned utilities: Oregon IOU; Puget Sound Power; A sight; Idaho Power; PacifiCorp. Solar distributed in winter in western Washington (or western Oregon) does not produce enough power to fully fill this gap. Instead, most of the new energy will have to be found in places with plenty of sun or wind throughout the year. And we're going to need big transmission lines to carry that juice.

However, distributed solar power could help alleviate some of the transmission limitations in several summer areas in Cascadia. Southern Idaho already uses most of its electricity in the summer for air conditioners and irrigation pumps. In addition, it is a solar point: the conditions are excellent for the production of solar energy. Here again, though, the area would have to meet additional conditions, including ensuring that the distribution system has adequate capacity to connect the projects so that distributed solar power can replace building more transmission.

In particular, several other areas are likely to shift from a winter peak to a summer peak as the climate changes and more Northwest residents install high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps instead of electric resistance systems. BPA expects Portland and Salem, Oregon to become summer hot spots by the end of the decade. And the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area could go from winter to summer at its peak in 20 years, according to an analysis of BPA data. (The EPS from these forecasts is likely based on historical energy use patterns rather than future modeling of widespread electrification and fossil fuel retirement, so they may underestimate future energy demand. Still, these trends provide a rough picture of change in seasonal energy use.)

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